Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sat Mar 12, 2022 11:17 pm  

Benny Profane wrote:

Tiger Carroll used to don the Buck costume back in the day. Often with hilarious consequences.

Farnborough Town FC reputedly used to use dropped contacted players as the mascot. Probably not ideal tbh but hey hi.

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 1:05 am  

markrammond wrote:

The original Broncos Official Supporter's Group was chosen on a vote basis, from the first 50 members to sign up, and the voters were from the supporters and no one else.

It was really orientated to try and help fill an activity gap, with supportive activities, perhaps on a match day, to try to help the club.

The club had found prior to that, that it was difficult to get much of a level of co-operation and support.

I'll give my views on the BOSG.

I personally felt that Brian and his Wife made an ideal Chairman and Secretary; they were retired and had previously fulfilled the roles at London Broncos. I wasn't sure they were well known enough at the club. Thus I was supportive of Andy being a co-Chairman as he had stated he would also be retiring from working life and thus be available and I felt that he and Lesley would be a friendly male and female face on a matchday.

The other members of the Group I saw more as offering a specific skill or experience; for instance someone with a financial background could be a treasurer or someone who had fund raising experience could raise funds.

For things to work the Group needed the Chairman, co-Chairman and Secretary to be working regularly in their own time and for the Club to provide a trusted leadership figure with ongoing direction and openness with a deep commitment to the role, and someone who could hear criticism and want to respond to it and better the club.

Within the first few weeks, it turned out that the Chairman and Secretary were not seen as being compatible with the club representatives; the co-Chairman did not retire from working life and committee members would simply drop out. Other people would chime in and claim to have a skill but not move things forward in any way, only to disappear, without even any reasoning, yet feel free to criticise despite their proven negligence and indolence.

There were also people within the group who did have a skill but it could realistically be best placed or only done a matchday.

It was difficult, and I felt by this time last year that the Group could likely only move forward properly if either the BOSG set out a list of issues, or the club set out an overall strategy, and that there was a commitment to move forward on at least one of the two.

If neither happened, then it would be a talking shop only and might even be seen as making the club worse.

It didn't happen; my paper was simply disregarded after point one and a fallacious view given on it being wrong. It was not wrong. The data fully supported my argument and nothing other than an opinion was given.

As time passed, the club began to be seen as somewhere you couldn't discuss things; more about banning and blocking than discussing and the disconnect between club representatives and the supporter base grew, and paranoia grew.

I personally tried to hold the club to account, although not being the lead on things. I put a series of forthright opinions to the club around a suite of different topics as diverse as the AFC Wimbledon move, club lottery, fan engagement, pricing and even a proposal for a different club representative to interact with the BOSG. But as time passed it was clear that no such strategy would ever be shared with the BOSG and that there was little interest in going beyond lip service.

I think over the last 18 months events have not helped, that is for sure, but I hold the senior leadership team at the Broncos to account for their responses.

I do not think the club's media manager should have been furloughed and I do not think he should have been made redundant and I do not think there was anyone capable of replacing him at the club, on even a temporary basis.

I do not think tickets should have been sold at far higher prices for a move that was never going to take place that season and in my opinion the price has doubled for half the quality. I think the price was too low, but you cannot take away everything of value and double the price.

I do not think the existing players, including the club trained players, needed to wait almost the entire season to be told the club was going part time a week or two before the end of the season. This no doubt caused alienation and player departures, well beyond what I think the club had expected.

I think the club could have retained the majority of Walters, Hindmarsh, Sam Davis, Jones, Meadows, Boafo, Hodson and Ogden without the club doing things this way and I also feel that the likes of Fozard, Aston and Sammut were all retainable as I cannot believe anyone has broken the bank to get them.

Anyone who understands the costs of London understands that you would not get players to move to London on little money, unless they were either lower level, locally based or somehow managed to find a high paid job.

I do not think the club trained players still at the club are standouts; this includes the halfbacks who did not set-up tries for excellent players like Hankinson and Miski and are unlikely to do so for lesser players.

I do not think Leyland, Horsman, Blakemore and Oakley would be first team regulars even in the top half of the third division.

The likes of Latu, Macani, Palumbo, the Greenhalgh brothers, Dalton Grant, Thomas, Tuliatu, Coates and Ramsey were unlikely to all be of a Championship standard.

I do not see how Coleman could have been appointed in the first place. He had a win streak at London Skolars in 2017 when the weaker southern based teams were all in the league. 2018 was poor. 2019, he had another win streak, which ended in May 2019. After that he won one game over a year later against Coventry in May 2020. Apart from that Coleman has beaten only West Wales.

Broncos haven't won under him, a streak that is 6 losses, and 8 losses as a club. How could anyone rate him as the best available option, surely he cannot be seen as a better option than Tsang, Mbu, Ward or even Powell who were all locally based.
It just doesn't make sense. It is a very hard sell.

Regarding "help" there seems to be an army of people in orange Jackets with no specific skill, paid to be about on a matchday, when there is zero chance of crowd trouble, who could be allocated to specific roles after 3pm.

Also I do not see why the club cannot get the non-selected players to fulfill the matchday roles; I would not for instance expect Wellington Albert to dress up as Dusty, but I cannot see why the non-selected players can't do the administrative roles like manning the ticket office.

I think as things stand the way forward for the club is to declare an amnesty for the dozens or hundreds of blocked supporters and to bring in a friendly face to try to win back them. The club needs that person to be focused upon the customer experience.

I would be comfortable about supporting the club, even on a matchday, if the wrong people go and the right people are in place.

I suspect that there are others like me.

I pray the club can start to do things right again.

Well said Rammo.
I know the former media manager well and he did not want to leave the club. He was told that the new commercial manager could do the media during the pandemic which is why he was furloughed.
He was then told he could look after the “data” the club held and wasn’t needed to do media anymore as the aforementioned commercial manager had it covered as there wasn’t anything to tell fans.
Redundancy was offered when he said no to that as he wanted to look after the media and the messaging to the fans.
He would have stayed as he loved the job and the club.

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:15 am  

BroncoBen wrote:

Well said Rammo.
I know the former media manager well and he did not want to leave the club. He was told that the new commercial manager could do the media during the pandemic which is why he was furloughed.
He was then told he could look after the “data” the club held and wasn’t needed to do media anymore as the aforementioned commercial manager had it covered as there wasn’t anything to tell fans.
Redundancy was offered when he said no to that as he wanted to look after the media and the messaging to the fans.
He would have stayed as he loved the job and the club.

Way to go Monkey. Is there anyone at the club he HASN'T P1553d off?

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 9:55 am  

Orange has touched on the Mackay, Powell era. For me that was the start of the end when it should of been the start of a great era

We appointed a clueless coach(Powell) and gave him full salary cap and he got it massively wrong
We appointed a clown as the clubs CEO who was completely out of his depth and the rest is history.

If we had appointed someone like Michael Mcguire (the Wigan coach) instead of Powell who would have professionalised the playing side we would still be in SL. As it is we are about to 'fold'

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:27 pm  

wire-quin wrote:

As it is we are about to 'fold'

It is my summation that Hughes has given Loubser 5 years on a certain budget to get the club to self sufficiency.
We will see the measure of the man now, in whether he runs or he rolls up his sleeves.
First up. He made another error in trying to hire a commercial manager.
For the 1000 time in 20 years, employ a marketing/fan engagement professional. Then start to upgrade them to the corporate tables......the result of doing it the other way around is discounted platinum lounge seats after 3 games

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:41 pm  

orangeman wrote:

It is my summation that Hughes has given Loubser 5 years on a certain budget to get the club to self sufficiency.
We will see the measure of the man now, in whether he runs or he rolls up his sleeves.

What possible evidence could Hughes have seen that would make him think Lobster could deliver this ?

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:54 pm  

jbuzza wrote:

What possible evidence could Hughes have seen that would make him think Lobster could deliver this ?

The same that he saw in MacKay with the name change and move to the hive.
The same that he saw in appointing Powell or even worse, Grima on the say so of Soward?
Hughes is clueless, but his statement at seasons begining smacked of "you have 5 years......that's it".
I'll repeat. A General Manager is needed......someone prepared to roll up their sleeves, put.on the mascots outfit if need be, write match reports, wash kits, help out at training, write tweets.....someone who leads from the front.

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:08 pm  

orangeman wrote:

The same that he saw in MacKay with the name change and move to the hive.
The same that he saw in appointing Powell or even worse, Grima on the say so of Soward?
Hughes is clueless, but his statement at seasons begining smacked of "you have 5 years......that's it".
I'll repeat. A General Manager is needed......someone prepared to roll up their sleeves, put.on the mascots outfit if need be, write match reports, wash kits, help out at training, write tweets.....someone who leads from the front.

I guess Hughes money making didn't involve recruiting good people or measuring their performance.

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:20 pm  

jbuzza wrote: I guess Hughes money making didn't involve recruiting good people or measuring their performance. Nope....he freely admits to knowing SFA about running a business/club in the book A Pastel Revolution. What he won't admit to is that he is a narcissist, who will NEVER take advice from anyone, no matter who they are, if he deems them "not as good as himself"! He buys and sells commodities and 95% of his business is based around contacts he made 40+ years ago...he doesn't have to build new relationships to do business and he has enough wealth to ensure he can ignore anyone he likes. We have had relationships break down at Harlequins, The Hive & Ealing under his ownership all because he and his staff are/were arrogant to the point of rudeness. His comments about playing in third tier union grounds was a dig at Trailfinders whilst his leading for fans to bring mates was a pointer to the gaping hole in the plan for Wimbledon. Whilst he is in charge, the club will continue the spiral down the plughole. AFTER 8 DAYS THE BRADFORD BANNER STILL BROKEN

jbuzza wrote: I guess Hughes money making didn't involve recruiting good people or measuring their performance. Nope....he freely admits to knowing SFA about running a business/club in the book A Pastel Revolution. What he won't admit to is that he is a narcissist, who will NEVER take advice from anyone, no matter who they are, if he deems them "not as good as himself"! He buys and sells commodities and 95% of his business is based around contacts he made 40+ years ago...he doesn't have to build new relationships to do business and he has enough wealth to ensure he can ignore anyone he likes. We have had relationships break down at Harlequins, The Hive & Ealing under his ownership all because he and his staff are/were arrogant to the point of rudeness. His comments about playing in third tier union grounds was a dig at Trailfinders whilst his leading for fans to bring mates was a pointer to the gaping hole in the plan for Wimbledon. Whilst he is in charge, the club will continue the spiral down the plughole. AFTER 8 DAYS THE BRADFORD BANNER STILL BROKEN

Re: Help Needed...can you assist? : Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:07 pm  

Nothing for 5 days now!!! https://twitter.com/pretorestaurant/sta ... 47808?s=21 Was the last movement on the Twitter feed with a retweet!!??

Nothing for 5 days now!!! https://twitter.com/pretorestaurant/sta ... 47808?s=21 Was the last movement on the Twitter feed with a retweet!!??